Music

Paul McCartney’s Grandchildren ‘Moan’ When He Plays Guitar Around Them

When Paul McCartney's grandchildren come to visit, he tends to play the guitar. But they don't like it because it gets in the way of their TV programs.

by Hannah Wigandt

Published on October 1, 2021

3 min read

How many grandchildren does Paul McCartney have?

At 79 years old, Paul’s family has truly grown. Paul has three children, Mary, Stella, and James, with his first wife, Linda McCartney. Paul also adopted Linda’s daughter Heather, whom she had in a previous marriage. Linda died in 1998, and Paul married his second wife, Heather Mills, in 2002. They had one daughter, Paul’s youngest child, Beatrice, in 2003. After Paul divorced Mills in 2008, he married Nancy Shevell in 2011.

In an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2019, Paul showed Stephen Colbert a picture of him with all eight of his grandchildren. He told the host that they call him “Granddude.”

“One of them, who shall remain nameless, Beckett, just said one day, ‘Hey Grandude.’ I said, ‘That’s a great name,’ and that’s how it started,” Paul told Colbert. Later, Paul wrote a children’s book called Hey Granddude! Paul’s oldest daughter, Mary, has four sons, Arthur, 22, Elliot, 19, Sid, 13, and Sam, 10. His second oldest daughter, Stella, also has four children, Miller, 16, Bailey, 14, Beckett, 13, and Reiley, 10.

His grandchildren ‘moan’ when he sings for them

We couldn’t imagine moaning if Paul McCartney ever whipped out his guitar in front of us and started singing. But that’s exactly what Paul’s grandchildren do. Paul recently told The Mirror (per the Daily Mail) that they don’t appreciate him singing around the house because they’d rather watch TV. They’re not babies anymore, after all. Most of his grandchildren are teenagers.

“‘Look, people come to see me, pay money, but you’re not even remotely interested,'” Paul says to them. “And they say, ‘Grandad, look, do you mind? We’re watching this programme?'”

Although, Paul’s grandchildren do fancy his songs that appear in their favorite films like The Boss Baby and Sing. Occasionally, when they were little, they’d let him sing them to sleep with a rendition of Beatles classics, and they love “Black Bird.”

On an appearance on Good Morning Britain in 2014, Paul said that his grandchildren are sort of aware that their grandfather is one of the most famous musicians in the world. But he still has to “sell himself” to them.

Paul McCartney picks his grandkids up from school, spoils them, and reads them dirty poems

Paul said he adores his grandkids in a 2019 appearance on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show (per Irish News). “And we spend quite a good bit of time together. We don’t live near each other, but we go on holiday together, like Christmas,” Paul said. Sometimes Paul even picks his grandchildren up at school.

“It’s great fun you know, because you don’t know how to do it like parenting,” Paul continued. “It’s ad lib, it’s the biggest ad lib. So when grand-parenthood comes around, it’s like, ‘OK, what do we do here?’ And so I say that joy is like picking them up at school and they love it.” Paul says his grandchildren don’t just love him; they love the ice cream he buys for them.

Paul also recalled the time he made his grandchildren laugh so hard while reading them a “dirty” poem by E. E. Cummings. “We’re out in America and they were staying with us. (Nancy) said, well, let’s have a sleepover. So four of them came over and I said, well, we’re going to do this.” When they were ready for bed, Paul wanted to read them a bedtime story.

The only book Paul came up with was the poetry book. “I think, ‘OK, this looks pretty good.’ So I started to read it to them and it got dirty,” Paul explained. But the children loved it. “The kids are giggling away, and I’m looking, thinking, ‘God I really got myself into a corner. How I’m going to get out of this?!'”

Paul’s grandchildren don’t know how blessed they are to have him. They are his whole world, and he has fun with them. He’s the best Granddude.